Cases

A Minnesota videographer challenged state statute that arguably prohibited them from refusing to provide video service for same-sex marriages when they provided such services for opposite-sex marriages.

The Supreme Court has been asked to review whether the disclosures required by the California Reproductive FACT Act, which require crisis pregnancy centers to post pro-abortion messages inside their facilities, violate the protections set forth in the First Amendment, applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment.

A transgender high school girl desired to use the boys’ facilities at the high school, despite the availability of single-stall bathrooms that offered greater safety, and sued the school district whose policy prevented her from doing so.

In this case, citizens of Bloomfield, New Mexico, sued their city, claiming that a display of a Ten Commandments monument violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Despite the facts that the display was located in an area in which the city had invited citizens to display other monuments and that a plague stated that the display was private speech, not government speech, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled that the monument was, in fact, government speech, and that it did violate the Establishment Clause. The city filed a petition asking the Supreme Court of the United States to review the case.

In this case, two homosexuals asked a cake shop owner, Jack Phillips, to make a wedding cake for them. Jack explained that his Christian convictions would not allow him to do so. The homosexual couple filed a complaint against Jack and the business with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, claiming they had violated Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws. The Commission ordered Jack to make the cake. He appealed that decision through the state court system and ultimately to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court has not yet rendered its decision. We were involved in two briefs in this case.

Montana’s commissioner of political practices ruled that Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church violated election law by participating in a Focus on the Family simulcast and allowing petitions in support of a pro-marriage ballot initiative to be circulated on church premises.

After an inmate gave birth in jail, the baby suffered severe birth defects as the result of neglect and indifference by jail personnel. The inmate mother sued on behalf of her daughter. The defendant sought to avoid liability by arguing that the baby had not been a “person” during the delivery process.

A school district repeatedly told one of its students that he could not wear numerous different shirts to school, despite acknowledging that none of the shirts were offensive nor would they cause a disruption to the school. Both the district court and the court of appeals (where we also filed a brief) ruled in favor of the school district, and the student asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.

The state of Illinois amended its Moment of Silence law, changing it from optional to mandatory for public schools to observe a moment of silence. The parent of a student sued, alleging the new statute violated the Establishment Clause. The federal district agreed and ruled in the parent’s favor. The defendants—a school district and the state Superintendent of Education appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.